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On this episode of The Roundtable with Robert Bannon, Robert welcomes musical theatre writer, composer, lyricist, and violinist Timothy L. Michuda for a conversation about his powerful new musical, TURING.
Co-written by Michuda and Benjamin Ward, TURING tells the true story of Alan Turing, the brilliant British mathematician whose work was instrumental in cracking Nazi Germany’s Enigma code during World War II — and who was later prosecuted by the British government because he was gay.
Rather than tell Turing’s life as a conventional chronological biography, the musical unfolds across three parallel timelines, introducing audiences to Turing as a boy struggling to find his place in the world, as the brilliant young man whose groundbreaking work helped change the course of World War II, and as an adult facing devastating persecution because of his sexuality.
The result is a musical about far more than mathematics and history. TURING examines identity, love, loneliness, genius, acceptance, injustice, and the human being behind one of the most consequential minds of the twentieth century.
Michuda joins Robert to talk about why Alan Turing’s story called to him, the challenge of transforming such a complicated life into musical theatre, and how he and Ward found the show’s distinctive three-timeline structure. They also discuss creating a contemporary theatrical score that incorporates orchestral, jazz, and electronic influences and finding the emotional life underneath a story many audiences may think they already know.
The conversation comes at an exciting moment for the project. TURING has already received Best Musical honors at the Theatre on the Verge New Musicals Festival and received a full staging in Chicago. Now, the show takes another step forward with the release of the official TURING concept EP on October 9, 2026.
Michuda also shares his own journey from a classically trained violinist to a musical theatre creator. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and BerkleeNYC, he holds undergraduate degrees in Violin Performance and Civil Engineering as well as a master’s degree in Writing and Design for Musical Theater. His work also includes the family musical Take A Quack At It!, which has reached audiences internationally, including productions in Taiwan.
It is a conversation about the responsibility of telling a real person’s story, the importance of preserving LGBTQ+ history, and how musical theatre can take a figure we know from history books and reveal the complicated, vulnerable human being behind the accomplishments.
Three stories. One man. One extraordinary life.
Hear Timothy L. Michuda tell the story behind TURING on The Roundtable with Robert Bannon.
Visit RobertBannon.com for more episodes and follow @RobertMBannon on Instagram.
The best is yet to come.
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